KIM LAWSON
DIRECTOR OF ORGANIZATION
“The working class is under attack.
This is a time when the UE needs strong, experienced leadership.”
ABOUT ME
I grew up in a union-dense working class neighborhood in Northwest Indiana.
I am the daughter of a factory worker and of a retail clerk. I am a granddaughter of coal miners. Both my parents and my grandparents were proud union members.
Union wages and benefits enabled my parents to send me to a state university where I was exposed both to great knowledge and to the ignorance of so many people who do not understand the importance of trade unions for the working class.
“you have been a warrior for worker’s rightS and I so APPRECIATE your absolute DEDICATION to the cause
Thousands of people live better lives because of your organizing ”
Bernie Sanders
“I got startED in the labor movement working for Cesar and Delores in the United Farm Workers in California”
After I graduated, I took my first job with the United Farm Workers (UFW) in California. I worked with Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta and other great leaders and learned first-hand the cruel conditions of workers whose labor produces the wealth that others enjoy. As a staff writer for UFW publications, it was my job to document this cruelty. I attended funerals of farm workers’ children who had been poisoned by pesticides, and I worked with other great labor activists to document cancer clusters where children were born with profound birth defects due to pesticide use and abuse. I was told by farmworkers about the lack of running water and sanitation. I learned that the growers/owners and their managers would tell farmworkers that the pesticides being sprayed on them were “vitamins” that would do them no harm.
Bernie Sander submits remarks about Kim Lawson as part of Congressional Record
Kim’s UE Numbers
Years in UE…………………………………………………30
First Contracts Bargained.……………………..17
Successor Contracts bargained…………….50+
Successful Organizing drives led.………….17
Staff Supervised……………………………………….25+
Kim’s Vision for UE
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Deepen and Broaden our Leadership
We need to get more members involvedin our union and broaden our leadership so that the burden of running the union and fighting back does not fall on the same small number of leaders in our locals and regions.
Developing greater member activism in our locals starts with organizing around the issues our members care about most. This is why we designed the Building Union Power series, a four-part online workshop that teaches UE members how to activate membership and develop new leaders through mobilizing around workplace issues.
As Director of Organization I will deepen our work in this area with the goal of helping locals wage more - and more effective - shop floor fights. I’d like us to continue programs like our Leadership and Staff Development Program and our Women’s Leadership Program - two programs I was honored to help develop .
I would also work to develop additional trainings geared towards the specific industries in which we work, so that we can narrow our focus to develop skills we can more easily apply in our shop floor fights.
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Increase Staff Development and Training
We have an amazing staff who work hard to organize new members and assist our locals. We could do more to assist them. We ask a lot of our staff, and it is understandable that at times they may feel unprepared when thrust into unfamiliar situations.
While some of this is inevitable, I want to ensure that we’re giving staff the skills and confidence to develop independent and militant leaders and locals that are grounded in UE rank-and-file principles.
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Expand our Organizing
We have managed to do an impressive amount of organizing under the leadership of Mark Meinster and, for the first time in a long time, we are able to operate with a solid stream of revenue. This means that we have the opportunity to not only continue building our strength in higher education, but launch new organizing efforts in our core industries like manufacturing and the service sector.
Workers in this country are under attack and need a union that knows how to fight back. No union knows how to do this better than UE, and we must and will maintain our leadership position in the struggle for working class rights and solidarity!
